Saturday, June 11, 2011

a trip to the Japanese book store

After months and months of obsessing over Japanese craft books online and having them shipped over to me directly from Japan (for a hefty shipping fee), it finally donned on me, maybe these are available locally..? In my culturally diverse (and heavily Asian influenced) city, there must be a place that sells these.. and you know what? There is! Hooray!

Book Off is a Japanese company that specializes in selling used books and they have stores in the US, France, Korea, and Canada (luckily the only one in Canada just happens to be right in my home town!). I went to check it out yesterday and was pretty darn impressed! Although I made a beeline right to the Japanese sewing books, I did notice they they also buy and sell English books, CDs, DVD, and well, a ton of other stuff. The store was HUGE!

So, onto my sweet book finds...

I think Cloudy is a product line in Japan. I'm assuming it's yarn and sewing stuff since the book is filled with fabulous crocheted baskets as well as fabric bags, shopping bags, embroidery decor and pincushions... And the very cool upcycled cardboard baskets in the picture directly above. How smart is that?!

This bag book was filled with mostly tote bags but a few fancier bags and some accessories.

Everyday Bottoms is a fabulous book I had seen before on another blog but wasn't able to find it on Etsy or any other Japanese craft book sites. And there it was on the bookshelf, just waiting for me to buy it! I love the aesthetic of this book and of course, the patterns are cool, classic and perfect for boys and girls (good news for my son!)

The Stylish Dress Book was one I had seen on this blog. (If you are interested in Japanese sewing books at all, you have to check out the section on Japanese Dress Books and also her flickr set for tons of information, inspiration and eye candy.) I've been wanting to try sewing more clothes for myself, and this book is filled with amazing clothes! Beautiful, classic, casual, feminine.. I think I love pretty much every design in the book! And there was even a recipe for cookies tucked in among all the lovely clothes.

And finally, a sweet little cross-stitch pattern book filled with folksy flowers and animals, as well as the complete alphabet in seventeen different styles!

I'm so happy with my haul! Five books, over a hundred fabulous patterns, beautiful pictures and wonderful inspiration for just over fifty bucks! The only catch is that although pretty much all of the books I bought look new (with pattern sheets still in tact), Book Off is essentially a used book store and so inventory is very random. They get new shipments in once a month and it's pretty much a toss up what they'll be getting in shop (and they can't special order a specific book for you) So, it looks like I might have to make this a regular stop along with my thrift stores and fabric shops.